Wednesday, February 14, 2007

News for 02-13-07

02-13-07 - Joint Chiefs Chairman Sees No Evidence of Meddling by Iran's Regime ** A day after the U.S. military charged Iran's government with shipping powerful explosive devices to Shiite Muslim fighters in Iraq to use against American troops, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said Monday that he hasn't seen any intelligence to support the claim. ..."We know that the explosively formed projectiles are manufactured in Iran. What I would not say is that the Iranian government per se knows about this," Pace replied. "It is clear that Iranians are involved and it is clear that materials from Iran are involved. But I would not say based on what I know that the Iranian government clearly knows or is complicit." ....Democratic lawmakers and other administration critics, including some former senior U.S. officials, are worried that the White House may be exaggerating its case against Tehran to justify a military strike on Iran's suspected nuclear weapons facilities. Speak now or forever hold ...

02-13-07 - Bush plan would cut VA funding The Bush administration plans to cut funding for veterans' health care two years from now - even as badly wounded troops returning from Iraq could overwhelm the system. That is a slap in the face to our guys who are serving on the front lines for this administration.

02-13-07 - Anti-American cleric flees Iraq for Iran ** Anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr fled Iraq for Iran ahead of a security crackdown in Baghdad and the arrival of 21,500 U.S. troops sent by President Bush to quell sectarian violence, a senior U.S. official said Tuesday.

02-13-07 - Iran on course for nuclear bomb, EU told The downbeat conclusions of the "reflection paper" ? seen by the Financial Times ? are certain to be seized on by advocates of military action I'd be checking into the backgrounds of those that compiled this 'reflection paper' about now.

02-13-07 - From Aug. 2005: CIA trained Iraqi paramilitaries to create pre-war unrest Authorized by President George W. Bush in March 2002 as part of a policy of "regime change" in Iraq, the Scorpions were made made up mostly of exiles recruited by the Kurds who were sent to Iraqi cities including Baghdad, Fallujah and Qaim to give the impression that a rebellion was under way, current and former US intelligence officials told The Washington Post. Sounds familiar...

02-13-07 - From Mar. 2006: Neo-con cabal blocked 2003 nuclear talks The George W Bush administration failed to enter into negotiations with Iran on its nuclear program in May 2003 because neo-conservatives who advocated destabilization and regime change were able to block any serious diplomatic engagement with Tehran, according to former administration officials.

02-13-07 - Feith-Libby Lies Exposed The phrase "not supported by the available intelligence" is merely bureaucratese for a "lie-filled pile of crap," and that's the most straightforward way to describe the intelligence product produced by the OSP, which was run directly out of the office of then-Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith. Feith, who was called "the fucking stupidest guy on the face of the earth" by Gen. Tommy Franks, is a hard-core neoconservative with intimate ties to the Israeli far right. Good call, Sir.

02-13-07 - Ex-senator questions Fitzgerald's case "When you put too much power in the hands of unelected, unaccountable people who have every incentive to focus massive resources onto one particular person - who gets the plaudits in the media for doing so - it's a bad thing," Thompson told ABC. Isn't that what the Bush admin did to Plame?....

02-13-07 - Qaeda urges Palestinians leave Fatah, embrace Islam The SITE Institute is a private U.S. organisation that tracks militant activities and often publishes militants' statements. It carried an English transcript of the Zawahri statement which it said appeared as a recording on the Internet. That explains a lot. Next we'll learn that it's run by a bunch of neocons (like MEMRI is).

02-13-07 - A Terrorist by Any Other Name ** Once again, amidst the thunderous roar of treason, the voice of reason is being muted and the pundits at the AEI and other neo-cons are taking America to war. The mainstream media, by affording them a platform, are putting a rope around our values, our liberty and justice, but above all, they are snuffing out the life of our citizenry. Are we ready to submit? Hell no.

02-13-07 - Wake Up! The Next War Is Coming ** The new NIE in 2005, though, was the first key estimate managed by widely respected Thomas Fingar, the State Department officer who took leadership of the National Intelligence Council earlier that year. Its key judgments were not welcome downtown, however, since they were issued at a time when Vice President Dick Cheney was warning of a ?fairly robust new nuclear program,? in Iran, and was painting the threat?and particularly the danger to Israel?as far more imminent.

02-13-07 - Iranian students demand Nestle boycott "Boycott Nestle, save our Al-Aqsa," read the placards carried by the university students, angered by Israeli building work near the east Jerusalem mosque compound, which was the focus of violent clashes between Israeli forces and Palestinians.

02-13-07 - Israelis urged to shun Iraq The advisory appeared to be in response to reports that a growing number of Israelis are traveling to Iraq, usually on foreign passports, for business purposes. Israeli security experts are said to be in especially high demand in the relatively stable Kurdish areas of northern Iraq.

02-13-07 - JINSA honors ex-Spanish leader Aznar, a conservative, strongly backed the Bush administration?s war in Iraq, a stance that contributed to his loss of power in 2004. JINSA, a neocon outfit that pushed for the war on Iraq.

02-13-07 - U.S. marks Islamic Jihad leader The State Department offered a separate bounty for Mohammed Ali Hamadei, a Lebanese Hezbollah member suspected of involvement in the 1985 hijacking of TWA Flight 847 that resulted in the murder of a U.S. sailor. But the wholesale murder of THESE US sailors goes unpunished by this same government. An outrage.

02-13-07 - From Feb. 2006: THE HOUR: Knowing What We Don't Know "Israeli intelligence played a hidden role in convincing Wolfowitz that he couldn't trust the CIA... Israeli intelligence officials frequently traveled to Washington to brief top American officials, but CIA analysts were often skeptical of Israeli intelligence reports, knowing that Mossad had very strong - even transparent - biases about the Arab world." Wolfowitz, who "had begun meeting personally with top Israeli intelligence officials," preferred the Mossad's analysis to the CIA's.

02-13-07 - Putin takes Mideast peace offensive to Jordan Putin also took a new swipe at the United States, accusing it of stirring up Russia as a "threat" in Congress to secure funds for its military action in Iraq and Afghanistan, five days after a blistering attack on US foreign policy

02-13-07 - Members of Congress, Knesset to Address Iranian Threat, Incitement By Palestinian Media U.S. Reps. Dave Weldon,M.D. (R-FL) and Eliot Engel (D-NY) will host a joint press conference withmembers of the Israeli Knesset following a meeting to, among other things,address the growing regional threat posed by Iran's pursuit of nuclearweapons and extremists' use of Palestinian media to incite violence againstIsraelis and Americans. Our legislators evidently have nothing better to do than all of this work on behalf of a foreign nation.

02-13-07 - Bombs tear through Lebanon buses The casualties were travelling on two buses near Bikfaya, a mainly Christian town in the hills north of Beirut. Somebody wants to split the Christians (who have come together with some other noted Lebanese groups for these protests in a rare show of unity) from the rest of the protest movement. Or so it would seem.

02-13-07 - Mahathir's war crimes tribunal under fire Mahathir last week launched a war crimes tribunal which he said will focus on victims of abuse in Iraq, Lebanon and the Palestinian territories, saying the existing International Criminal Court in The Hague was biased.